


I trust him with my life

by Estelle (Fielding)



Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [18]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Esisode: s04e09 The Overmining, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22301050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fielding/pseuds/Estelle
Summary: “So what's the plan, son?” “Well, Dad…”Jake and Holt prepare to go undercover with CJ. Takes place during The Overmining.
Relationships: Ray Holt & Jake Peralta
Series: B99 Season 7 Countdown Project [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588849
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	I trust him with my life

**Author's Note:**

> Story No. 18 of my Season 7 Countdown Project.

Jake kicks the door shut to Raymond’s office and drops into the chair in front of his desk.

“So, that could’ve been worse,” he says.

Raymond stares. “He said ‘muchachos’ 18 times in 10 minutes.”

“You were counting?”

“I am always counting.” Raymond sighs and folds his hands on his desk. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring him along on the bust?”

“He’ll be fine,” Jake says, waving off his concerns. “We’ll just- make him a silent partner, or something. Look, my CI’s arranged for us to meet Severino tonight, so I’m thinking I’ll be Cal Dawson, retired featherweight champion who’s never gotten over being forced to throw his last big fight.”

“And I’ll be Billy Bragg, former-”

“Actually, sir, Billy Bragg is a real person.”

“He is?”

“Yeah, he’s a singer/songwriter, not really my kind of thing but, actually, you might like him? How do you feel about alt-folk music?”

“I believe I hate it on principle,” Raymond says, automatic.

“Fair enough.”

“I’ll be Billy...Ferguson,” Raymond says, checking with Jake, who rolls his eyes a little but nods. “Former equestrian coach who became addicted to uppers during his Olympic training days. He moved into dealing in the late ‘90s to support his obsession with Breyer Horse collecting.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Jake says, “but I love it.”

Jake offers to head out to find appropriate clothes for their covers, a task that Raymond consents to with far less hesitation than he might have a year or two ago. When he’s gone, Raymond turns back to his computer and the reports he should really sign off before their meeting with Severino, since there’s no telling how long that will go, or what kind of paperwork he’ll have to complete later.

It’s almost 9 p.m. – Raymond started a little early tonight, along with most of his detectives. He realizes they’ve all been doing that, as if they can somehow creep toward a more normal schedule and perhaps no one will notice. He makes a note to remind the team that their shifts begin at 10 and they shouldn’t come in early unless their presence is requested.

Raymond rubs at his thigh as he clicks through to the next report, emailed from Santiago that morning before she’d gone home. The impalement injury still aches some nights, more so lately as it’s gotten colder. A week ago his leg locked up on him when he stood at the end of a shift, and he’d clutched at the edge of his desk hard enough to leave imprints in his palms, riding out the spasms in his still-healing hamstring. It’s been two months already but his body seems to still carry the trauma. He wonders if Jake’s leg still hurts too. He never mentions it.

They never actually talk about Florida at all, and Raymond’s not entirely sure why. Yes, it was horrible – Florida itself, but also the entirety of the situation, of missing their loved ones and their jobs and their lives, missing their very names. But Raymond doesn’t believe he carries any residual upset from the experience, and Jake seems fine too, or as fine as he ever does.

Their relationship, though- it’s shifted. Of course they grew closer during their time in Coral Palms, it was only natural. They had only one another on which to rely.

And Raymond has been aware for some time of a certain familial intimacy growing between them – a paternal bond that Raymond himself has been happy to cultivate, and that has certainly become even more solidified over the past few months.

But it’s not just a closeness, Raymond realizes. In Peralta, he’s found a partner.

The realization comes to him all at once, the thought so fully formed and natural that he wonders how it’s only just dawning on him now. Raymond hasn’t had many partners in his career – not nearly enough, in fact. He was assigned partners, yes, but he could count on one hand how many of those men (and two women) he could say he had trusted. Raymond has always had friends, and he’s had boyfriends and lovers and fleeting summer romances. He and Kevin have a wide and diverse social network, and between them a found family that is robust and fully supportive.

Professional partnership, though – that’s been rare, a bewildering void for Raymond. And now here exists Jake Peralta, not so long ago the immature, privileged, trouble-making gum stuck to the bottom of Raymond’s highly polished shoes. A man Raymond would – already has, on many occasions – trust with his life. A man who looks up to Raymond, and to whom Raymond would turn for advice too.

When on earth did that happen?

He can’t pinpoint a day, or a single event. He can’t say for sure it even happened while they were in Florida. He just knows where they are now.

“Hey, Cap,” Jake says, head popping into his office even as he’s knocking on the door.

Raymond startles, and turns his face back to his computer screen. “Come in, Peralta.”

“Check it out.” Jake dumps a stack of clothes on the center of Raymond’s desk, displacing pens and pencils. A requisition notice form the day shift floats to the floor; Raymond does not pick it up.

“What is this?” he says, picking up and unfolding a shirt. It’s a polyester tracksuit jacket. It smells, not faintly, of cat litter and old stir fry.

“It’s Billy’s,” Jake says, and Raymond looks up, noticing Jake’s hat – a black knit cap that he’s set at a jaunty angle – for the first time. The rest of the clothes look much like Jake’s own, only larger. “Must I?”

“Yes,” Jake says, utterly sincere.

Raymond sighs and re-folds the jacket. “Very well. We’ll leave in-” He checks his computer clock. “One hour. Please make sure Captain Stentley is ready to go.”

“On it,” Jake says.

He moves to the door, and without thinking Raymond says, “Peralta, how is your leg?”

“Sir?” Jake turns back, brows bent in confusion.

“Your leg,” Raymond repeats, and looks down toward Jake’s thigh. “I haven’t asked in a while. Does it still bother you at all?”

Jake’s hand goes to his thigh, rubbing a thumb over what Raymond presumes is the scar from his bullet wound. “It’s fine.”

“Good,” Raymond says. “That’s good.”

There’s a pause, and Raymond can tell Jake is waiting for him to say more. He says, “Dismissed.”

Jake smiles, small and fond and exasperated, and Raymond waits for the door to close again before he smiles too.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title is from Feed the Beast (Bash Brothers).
> 
> *I love this episode with all my heart. It’s just so, so, so funny. But I think my favorite thing about it is the natural back-and-forth between Jake and Holt – from the very beginning when they’re just talking over a case and CJ interrupts to the “son/dad” convo in Holt’s office and their totally comfortable undercover op. It also makes sense to me that they would have gotten much closer during and after Coral Palms, both personally and professionally.


End file.
